


To Each His Own

by monochromatic



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Crossdressing, M/M, Piercings, Sibling Incest, dick piercings specifically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-26
Updated: 2013-04-26
Packaged: 2017-12-09 13:10:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/774575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monochromatic/pseuds/monochromatic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I think closeted deviance runs in the family.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Each His Own

**Author's Note:**

> Originally, this wasn’t even going to be a sexy thing, it was just going to be a Dave in ladies’ clothes thing, but then Bro showed up with dick piercings and everything went downhill from there.

It starts as a joke.

On the first gorgeous spring day of the year, Rose drags you out of the apartment to wander aimlessly through downtown. Since embarking on the great adventure of higher education, you’ve barely stepped foot in any of the local shops. Only the generic chain conveniences — the same 24-hour marts that dot the entirety of your great nation — for a pack of smokes, or an impromptu beer run at three in the morning.

But today, meandering the sunny sidewalk, a mild breeze fluffing your hair, you are a tourist in your own town.

Rose tows you into a small secondhand boutique, the kind of place that smells like French soap and mothballs. You stand idly by, watching her strike with precision along the rows of used clothes. Rose is the type of girl who politely dismisses salespeople to focus on her own uncanny radar. As she sifts through rack after rack of ugly tule nonsense and threadbare silk, you casually peruse.

A nervous, tinkling little laugh sneaks up on you and you jump out of your skin.

“Are you looking for a gift?” She’s not much older than you — the clerk, obviously. “It isn’t often I see a boyfriend look so comfortable in here.” She laughs again, and it makes your hair stand on end.

You don’t bother objecting, don’t bother correcting this insignificant, annoying stranger. It isn’t the first time you and Rose have been mistaken for a couple, and hilariously, it’s never the fact that she’s your sister that bothers you. It’s just, she’s Rose. Maybe, maybe a long time ago, before light and rain and heat and clockwork, maybe you could’ve been a thing.

But probably not.

“Whatever.”

Sensing your discomfort, the girl recoils from you, taking up her post behind the counter and falling silent again. A lot of people like to make conversation while they shop, but Rose is not one of those people, and you’re more of a spectator in this sport.

Then, you see them. They inexplicably catch your eye.

A pair of stilettos, black, nondescript. They’re large, for being women’s shoes. You’re consumed with a harrowing curiosity, and the curiosity must burn right through your skin and into the air, sending smoke signals, because Rose appears at your side and she has that look on her face.

“Find something?”

You shrug, shoving your hands into your pockets, trying to keep them from reaching out. “Nice kicks, I guess. Would you wear ‘em?”

Rose stares shrewdly at the Empire State heels. She lifts one of them from the shelf, and you can’t help but feel a sense of loss. She peers at the sole, worn smooth from wear, and then inside at its scarlet taffeta guts. “They’re a size ten, Dave. I think they might fit you.”

“Ha.” Your toes curl a little, safely concealed in the haven of your beat-up sneakers. “Nice try, I’m a size thirteen.” The drop behind your sternum is not correctly reflecting the relief in your voice and it’s all very confusing.

“That’s about right; men’s and women’s shoes aren’t sized the same. Come on, I could use a laugh.”

She’s right, really. It’d be pretty funny, especially given that in the time since you’ve left Texas, you’ve become somewhat of an insufferable fixed gear maniac; the byproduct, naturally, is that you have great legs.

“Aw, why not.” Blatantly ignoring the sideways glance from the sales girl, you toe off your shoes and ball your socks up inside them. Rose helpfully provides her shoulder for you to balance on as you step into the stilettos.

The feeling of the shoes can only be described as foreign: the way they hug your feet, snug in all the right places — right, yet entirely unexpected and exotic. They pinch slightly at the toe, caressing your heels intimately. You don’t dare move in them yet, wobbling on your new axis.

Rose giggles behind her hand. “How do you feel?”

“Tall.” Tall, confident, in spite of your shaky knees and strained calves. You feel like you could walk out of here in these shoes and conquer the goddamn world. You haven’t felt like this in a long time, not since you relinquished your god powers in return for your life back. Not that you particularly regret that decision, but it’s nice to have a trace of that powerful feeling again.

“Well, you look magnificent. Now come down from there so we can get going.” Rose doesn’t intend to make a purchase, and you wonder if being in here reminds her too much of Kanaya. You decide not to ask.

“Yeah, okay, but hold up. I’ll be out in a minute.”

She raises an eyebrow.

“Just a minute, I swear.”

When you come out of the shop, fingers curled up in the flimsy paper handle of your bag, Rose is looking at you with amused suspicion. She’s accusing and inquiring all at once, but you have no words for her. It’s none of her business. Besides, she’ll probably stumble over them when she goes rummaging through your room later for spare looseleaf.

 

 

 

It’s been a week. The Shoes — that’s how you think of them, now — have been nestled in the back of your closet, lying in wait. Not just in the back of your closet, but at the back of your mind, as well. You think of them from time to time, but never for very long. Still, every time you do, there’s a nagging longing, an exacerbation of your initial curiosity. So you wait. You wait until a lonely Thursday morning, when Rose has been called in to cover a shift, and John can’t possibly drop in on you because that kid wouldn’t skip even on account of a bad case of the sniffles.

It takes some determination and fast reflexes (both of which you are in no short supply), but you manage to excavate the bag from the depths of your puny, packed closet. Lifting The Shoes from their brown paper husk, you set them gently on the floor and slowly ease your feet inside.

It’s a lot like coming home.

For a few moments, you only sit, flexing your toes and arching your feet, getting acclimated. More than that, you’re psyching yourself up, talking yourself into standing and putting one foot in front of the other. Honestly, it doesn’t take that much coaxing; your enthusiasm is tantamount to that of a toddler who, for the first time, has discovered his mother’s makeup and pearls.

When you stand, your ankles feel weak and you lurch forward, arms flying ineffectually outward in an attempt to steady your weight on thin air. You don’t actually fall, though, too cool for gravity, thank you very much. Getting your bearings isn’t all that difficult, just a process of trial and error, relearning the mechanics of your bones and how they relate to the ground. You spend a minute or two tottering around your room, clacking loudly on the floor; your cringe, reminding yourself to shift your weight off of your heels. Eventually it gets easier, though, and you’ve graduated from tottering to a trot, and you’re confident it won’t be long before you can strut.

What a shame, though, to be confined only to your modest room.

A quick peek at the clock confirms that you have a shitload of time to prance around the apartment before Rose comes home and catches you, so it is with sure footing that you slip past your door and into the living room. The click-click-click as you traipse across the wooden floor is gratifying in a primitive way, a jolt of pleasure echoed and amplified in your amygdala. Despite your raggedy tee shirt and ill-fitting boxers, you can’t help but think you look good when you catch sight of yourself in a mirror. Your legs are suddenly shapely, and the shift in your center of mass has renovated your posture completely. The added height has put a delicate arch in your spine and as a consequence, your ass looks great.

You’ll have to do this again, and soon.

 

 

 

So yes, it started as a joke, with a single pair of stilettos. But now, not long after Spring Break (which you spent quietly and humbly back in Texas), things have gotten…a little out of hand.

You’re pulling at your hair, a soft whine building up in your throat as you dig through the cluttered chaos of your updated wardrobe; nylons of varying opacities lay tangled with your loose socks and finding even just a regular tee shirt is becoming an ordeal, as most of them are entombed beneath a mound of lace trim and bandage seams and asymmetric panels. At the moment, though, you are not concerned with tee shirts.

From the waist down, you are suitable to be managing faxes and filing stock reports and serving lattes in the boardroom to fat, balding businessmen with their class rings and pleather briefcases. The vertical seams that run the length of your sheer, black stockings disappear under the hem of your pencil skirt. You’re shirtless, which brings us to your current dilemma; there’s a specific top you have in mind, sleeveless with a daring plunge, but your search has turned up empty. For a moment, you suspect that maybe you already used it this week and that it’s buried at the bottom of your hamper, away from prying eyes.

This is silly. No one else is going to see you — you make sure of that, carefully grilling Rose about her plans at least once a week, scheduling and rescheduling with John so that he remains safely in the dark. Still, you wanted to use that top. You’d donned your vintage choker specifically for the occasion — an item you value as a small treasure, given that you haggled with a pawnbroker for almost a whole hour, regaling him with the story of how it was for the girlfriend you met in elementary school. He believed you too, the chump.

Quite unexpectedly, the door to your apartment opens.

Rose isn’t supposed to be home for another five hours. John is in class. John is most definitely in class, because he sent you a bored text not ten minutes ago.

Paralyzed, glued to the floor on your storky, extended legs, you are panicking. Maybe Rose got out early; fine, you can just go lock the door, tell her you’re beating off or something to get her out of your hair. Augh, but you have no mirror in here to preen in front of!

“You home, lil’ bro?”

Oh shit.  _Oh shit_.

“Thought I’d surprise you! Brought you a care package with shit to make dinner!” There’s some shuffling and the thud of a single suitcase as it hits the floor and oh God it’s your Bro. This is not a situation you’re terribly excited to find yourself in. All during break, you pined for your closet, too scared to pack even The Shoes. You’d tried to stitch together some arguments for irony in your head, but honestly, it was too plain to see how seriously you take this bullshit. Not to mention the last thing you needed was for Bro to get one good look at the boner you didn’t know you had for fashion.

 _Maybe he’ll think I’m not home and just nap on the couch or something_ , you think. You could always shuck your clothes off and crawl into some sweats, muss up your hair and come blundering out of your room, faking sleep.

“Hm,” you hear him out in the kitchen, voice devoid of pretense now that he probably thinks he’s alone. “No note.”

Why the fuck would you leave a note? It’s not like you couldn’t just text Rose to let her know you were gonna’ be out, if that was the case. You’re still contemplating this archaic and frankly dumbass question when your door — left ajar — bursts wide open, the archway framing Bro’s immense figure in ways you don’t care to contemplate too deeply. God help you, you can’t hide shit in clothing this tight.

Bro just stands there, clearly frozen in the middle of a well-intentioned ‘ _Gotcha_ ’ and suddenly you wish you _were_  beating off because that was probably what he was expecting anyway, worst case scenario. But he closes his mouth and straightens up and his arms fall limply to his sides as he takes in this unforeseen plot twist. “Well,” he says at last, too casual for your liking, “I see I caught you at home.”

You consider your options. You opt to bide your time. “Did you fly out here?”

“Mhmm.” You suppose that explains the suitcase. “Like I said, I wanted to surprise you. Although it looks like the joke’s on me; good job, kid.”

“I, uh, it…” you could punch yourself in the nose for the appalling way you fumble over your words, but there isn’t much to say. He obviously knows he’s caught you without an audience, so he knows there is nothing but sincerity in this private exercise of delicate fabrics and playful textures. “Nah, you know what, this is exactly what it looks like,” you admit, playing it cool. “I have no explanation.” Straightening up, you watch and wait for Bro to make his next move.

He enters your room and shuts the door, pausing to really appreciate what he’s stumbled upon. “Didn’t ask for an explanation, did I?”

You swallow a lump in your throat.

“Besides, you know me.” He steps even closer and puts one of those big hands on your shoulder, fingertips smoothing over raised flesh. “I like to figure shit out by myself, not have someone break it down for me.” He fondles the petite glass beads of your choker and they jingle in a muted chorus on their overlapping strands. His fingers are warm as they dip under the jewelry and touch your neck.

“These are nice.”

“Got ‘em secondhand,” you inform him, and an odd, extrinsic pride blooms inside of you.

He acknowledges this with a curt nod, lets his hand fall down your bare torso until it hits the high waistline of your skirt. “This too?” he asks, like it’s no big deal.

You shake your head. “That’s new.”

Bro looks…impressed, maybe. At least, that’s the first interpretation you adopt, based on his eyebrows and the shape of his mouth. But then he pulls at the elastic of the skirt, snapping it against your skin and it hurts. While you’re still whining about that, his hands come down around your knees and push the fabric up, up, up around your thighs and oh no.

“Bad boy,” he scolds you sweetly, unhelpfully. “I thought I taught you better than to wear a skirt with nothing on under it.”

In total honesty, you really haven’t worked up to wearing panties yet, and the couple of pairs you did like came with bras and it’s not easy to justify ponying up that much cash for something when you’ll only use half the set. But rather than upset the mood, you just retort, “I like the air.”

He raises an eyebrow and curls his thumbs in the bands of your stockings; his skin against yours in the chokehold of the tight material is strangely erotic and though this little pastime of yours has never been sexual, it’s starting to veer in that direction.

He’s level with your face, hands still groping your thighs, and his breath bursts warmly over your shadeless face when he says, “You look hot, Dave.”

You blink, shooting for coolly indignant. “Don’t I always?”

Bro smirks and rolls his eyes. That was supposed to be a joke, but it would seem you’re the only one present with a sense of humor. He uses his weight to ease you on to your bed and then gets on his knees and oh hell. Flippantly, he takes one of your legs in both of his hands and just kind of examines it. “So how exactly did this become a thing?”

“I dunno,” you mumble.  _Shoes_ , you want to shout,  _it was a goddamn pair of used shoes!_  “Rose and I were goofing off and she made me try on some heels.” She did not make you try them on and you’re not a skilled enough liar to convince anyone otherwise, even yourself.

Chuckling, he observes, “You and Rose sure get to some kinky shit, kid.” Kissing your knee, he adds, “I’m a little jealous.”

You shrug, but your face is overheating and you’d put down a grand that you’re probably red as a lobster. “You and I can get up to some kinky shit, if you want.”

Long story short, there is no denying that you’ve been nursing a progressively worsening crush on Bro ever since things got back to normal; there’s just something about losing someone to the Great Beyond and getting them back, getting to have what you thought was lost time, that in conjunction with a hefty dose of preexisting admiration just flattens a guy under the bus, you know? Besides, what the fuck even is genetics, as far as you’re concerned, aside from a gratuitous mess of paradox ghost slime?

Your poetic reflections on the nature of ectobiology are dispersed when you look over to see Bro’s head disappearing under your skirt. He pauses to make eye contact with you just over the hem, pupils dilated, leaving only a thin band of ochre. He descends the rest of the way and you’re a man of honesty: you can admit to yourself when you’re losing your cool, a little bit. You can’t admit it out loud, though (omission is not a lie, by your standards), so you bite your lip and hold your tongue until you feel Bro’s tongue on your skin.

He’s…not what you expected. At all. Not that you’ve ever expected this. You’ve never laid in the dark, stifling quiet sighs. Not over Bro, never.

What was that about being an honest man?

“We should get you a garter belt.” Bro’s voice wafts over your spread thighs, raw but subdued, like two kids fooling around with the parents just downstairs.

“I uh,” you’re glad he can’t see you at the moment. “I have one, actually.” You laugh, but it’s awkward and it falls around you like broken glass. Bro doesn’t hear, or doesn’t care; he bites you on the seam of your leg and growls. “I could go put it on if you want.”

“Nah,” he breathes against the inside of your thigh, smoothly-shaven cheek teasing your stiffening cock. “Next time.”

Next time. How presumptuous. It isn’t the words though, or even their connotation that startles you, but the blithe, relaxed manner in which they were spoken. Next time. Now, as Bro licks along the groove between your thigh and your body, it feels as if his bites and kisses are just the seal on some kind of implicit pact. There is going to be a next time.

His hands are traversing the lengths of your legs, attentive and exploratory. His fingers are thick and steel-seasoned, his touch methodical and exact. He’s careful not to let his nails split a run in your stockings, which you appreciate, as this is your favorite pair. The polymer film between his fingers and your actual skin is comforting, like not going all the way, really. It’s an untenable delusion, but you’ll cling to it for just a while longer.

He wraps one hand around your dick and gently tugs while his mouth moves down, lips and tongue teasing your balls. You can’t find it in you to be at all embarrassed by the noise that comes out of your mouth. It’s almost over-stimulating, unexpected not only in gesture but because you can’t see him, either. The precise way in which he teases you makes you wonder if he’s thought about doing this before; a thought that ought to make you sick, instead it floods your gut with butterflies.

“Bro, come on,” you whine, burrowing one side of your face into a pillow.

“Good things come to those who wait,” he chuckles into your skin.

“Blow me,” you snarl.

He laughs and his face appears once more, all insatiable grin and hooded eyes. “As you wish,” he says, too smug for your liking. But he doesn’t return between your legs, instead getting up off his knees and onto your bed, splayed out on his back. Wait a second. “Well?” his voice feels far off. “Are you gonna’ fuck my mouth or what?”

Oh God. “Yeah, okay.”

The bed creaks as you reposition yourself. Bro looks good, legs extended, afternoon light warm on his skin, where it’s available. His smile is inviting. You pause, sitting back on his chest and you can feel him breathing. Reaching out, you comb your fingers through his hair, a slightly darker shade than yours and coarser in texture. It springs easily back into place once you’ve finished. Scooching closer, you bury your fingers against his scalp again, but this time, you maintain your hold, cradling him under you. He licks his lips and smiles, waiting patiently. You don’t make him wait for very long.

The soft, contented sound he makes as you slip the head of your cock past his lips is excruciatingly sexy and it’s tempting to just give him the rest all at once, but you use your remaining willpower to restrain yourself. Instead, you focus on the way his face looks between your thighs, his sharp cheekbones and long, sculpted jaw, pliable wet lips parted around you, skin yielding under skin. He hollows his cheeks and sucks, tonguing you eagerly, sloppy, even. He shuts his eyes and you clench your fingers in his hair, fascinated by the flush along the bridge of his nose. Clumsily, he tries to nuzzle your thigh with his cheek. You pick up the pace, pushing more of yourself into his mouth, faster and with less finesse. When they’re open, his eyes dart along your body, admiring your necklace or your rumpled skirt.

“I’m fucking hot, aren’t I.” You don’t know where these words come from or how they escaped, but it’s too late now because the train has left the station and Bro is tied to the tracks. “Should’a seen me a few days ago, Bro.” Your voice is strained from arousal, but your nerve is hardly diminished, evident in the roughness with which you treat his mouth. “I had on this short, black dress — leather, real tight. Could tell my religion, if I had one.”

Bro moans around you which in turn encourages your thrusts, and you go a little too hard, gagging him. You back off, giving him room to recuperate.

This sensation, this electric heat as it peels through your skin, isn’t remotely related to the overhang of dread you felt just contemplating being caught by Bro not that long ago. Fleetingly, you feel remorse for not packing some things during break because at least back in Texas, it was just the two of you.

While you’re distracted, push-pulling your dick in and out of his mouth, his hands sneak up on you, sliding under your skirt and grabbing your ass. He kneads you and at this point, the skirt has become a somewhat extraneous artifact — an ornament, its function reduced to pure aesthetic excitement. He makes these enticing, appreciative noises around you that reverberate through your skin, and the pressure in your stomach is starting to overheat, pushing out, seeking more room. You tighten your hold in Bro’s hair and push harder; he can take it.

In the background, you barely notice that one of his hands stops squeezing your ass. You’re almost too lost in the wet heat of his mouth to hear him unzip, but you do hear it, and you catch sight of his shoulder, see how he’s working his arm and he is jerking himself off to sucking your dick. His other hand pushes at your ass ineffectually, trying to put more of you in his mouth.

“Wait, stop,”  you pant, acutely aware of the sweat dampening your face. Your heart is pounding like you’ve just run a seventy-percent incline at altitudes unfit for Everest veterans; your stomach is somewhere up in your throat, and you can’t tell if it’s more butterflies or if you’re going to be sick. You remove yourself from Bro’s chest, just in case.

One of his hands — his big, warm, hardened hands — falls over your shoulder, feeling along your spine and pausing to fiddle with the seam of your skirt. “Hey.” There’s a terrible scope of context packed into that syllable, too broad and too unfamiliar to ever be wholly translated. But that’s alright; the sentiment mostly makes it through.

“Yeah, just a second, I —” the words fall over your lips like stones and the rest get stuck, jammed in your throat and you choke. Your eyes caught sight of something metallic and shiny and oh so fascinating but wait…oh, hold up. Hold the fuck up. That’s. That’s. “Whoa.”

Bro does not laugh so much as he coughs, like maybe he just punctured a lung. It’s a hollow sound, but it engulfs the room. “Too much for you?” he asks, face impassive as ever, but you know his tells. His shoulders are hunched up defensively, and his fingers are restless, as if he’s searching out the nearest available blade. Regardless, it would be ambitious, to say the least, to keep your eyes on the rest of him when his cock — hard and thick, resting upward — is decorated underneath.

“Naw, just kinda’ left field, even for you.” The easy banter is disproportionate to the situation, you think, but you won’t be the one to fold. “Shit, did I forget to update my subscription to Bro’s Dick Quarterly? When’d you get this done?”

Bro shuffles on your bed, sitting up, the springs enunciating every movement. “I got bored, I guess; empty nest syndrome or something.” He takes his dick in his hand and your cheeks enflame, hot as coals and probably just as red. Licking his lips, he brushes the bottommost rung and grunts. “Got this a little over three summers ago,” he explains. “Got the second one a year after that. This is from last year,” he’s biting his lip now, and the bridge of his nose has gone pink. “And in just a few short weeks, I’ll complete the set.”

It takes more time than it ought to register what exactly he’s telling you. Not because you’re dense in any capacity, but because the concept is utterly fucking preposterous. “Oh my God.”

He laughs, but his hand is still on his dick and it is incredibly distracting. “Climbing that ladder to the top; almost there, kid.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, Bro.”

“Like I said,” he shrugs, but there’s the faint scent of repentant shame hanging over him, “too much for you?”

It feels like a challenge, and that at least, in the midst of all this new territory, is familiar ground. You steady yourself, bracing a hand on his thighs, the denim of his jeans soft from wear. The more you look at it, the harder you get; you’re definitely going to have to treat your skirt before laundry day. There’s no point in answering Bro aloud; he’s a man of actions over words, in most cases. Rather, you put your hand so that your fingers interlock and gently, you pry his away. You could watch Bro touch himself until the sun goes down, but maybe you’ll save that for this supposed Next Time.

The piercings are simple, just three surgical steel barbells, only the round beads of which are plainly visible. But the lengths of each bar protrude against your fingers, inconsistent with your mind’s predetermined expectation of smooth, uninterrupted skin. You find the novelty of the sensation — perhaps even the sensation itself — unexpectedly pleasing. You don’t much care to think of how they got there, though.

“So, what’dya think?” Bro is reclined against your mountain of pillows, arms supporting his head.

“I think closeted deviance runs in the family.”

He rolls his eyes and ruffles your hair and you bat him away, annoyed with the gesture. This is obviously not the time.

“I also think,” you add, vacillating erratically between sincere and ironic seduction, “that I want to feel those in me.”

Bro does not bite your line. He does nothing remotely within the vicinity of taking your bait. Instead, he examines your face, shrewd and mechanical, and you know he’s checking for vulnerabilities, implying that you’re on the defensive. You squeeze him, silently arguing your position. He tilts back his head and chews on his lip and yeah, that’s the stuff. Crawling along his body, you settle, straddling his lap, putting most of your weight on his chest.  

“Ever done this before?”

“What, fucked a dude with his dick pierced?”

“Fucked a dude at all.”

Well, that depends. Granted, what Bro is referring to is painfully obvious, but the urge to defer to semantics is almost irresistible. But of course you know he’s asking if a guy has ever put his dick in your ass, and no amount of semantics is going to make all those pity blowjobs for John during midterms fit the bill.

“Not exactly,” you hedge. In all fairness, no, you’ve never had another guy’s dick up your ass, but you’ve been working up to it, maybe. Okay, mostly, it’s been short, tentative bouts of playing with yourself, just getting used to anything being back there at all. You have attempted — on several occasions — to get inside, but it hasn’t been easy.

“I dunno…”

“Oh, come on. Worried about taking my V card in this two-man game of poker? I’ll see it and raise you.”

His mouth remains steady, but his eyes narrow angrily and to see it up close is to stand at the edge of an oncoming cyclone. He has you trapped, though, fastened under his capable arms; you could not run for the proverbial basement if you wanted to.

“It’s not your first time I give a shit about,” he informs you coldly, his voice a low, even keel in your ear. It’s your first time with me, is the unspoken concern, the thing he won’t bring up because God forbid either of you draw attention to the very large elephant hogging up the room.

So, you fight dirty, splaying your fingers over his chest, playing to his vanity. You press your lips against the sliver of skin available through the collar of his shirt, licking him the way you want to lick every other inch of him.

“C’mon, man,” you beg, “look at me. I’m all dressed up with nowhere to go. The least you could do is toss me a courtesy fuck. I mean,” and this is next part is the horse to bet on, “you could always tell yourself at least it was with you.”

“Please, shut up.” He rolls you onto your back and kisses between your eyes, your cheek, one half of your mouth, continuing along your face only to nibble on your jaw. You can feel his dick through your skirt, and if only he’d shift just a little to the right. You don’t know what to do with your hands, but they’re restless, so you let them wander aimlessly over him, cresting his shoulders, your fingertips meeting at his neck; you run them along his back, down his sides, pulling at his shirt to get to a little skin. Bro is lean and nicely built; he has a body that would make Michelangelo weep in his grave. You’re nothing to be sneezed at either, but comparatively (and you are always comparing), you aren’t nearly as cut, and certainly not as broad. Hiking your legs up around his waist, you try to pull him closer, and feeling him through the material of your stockings is almost as rewarding as you thought it would be.

Bro returns to your ear and nuzzles it; it’s an alien gesture, and you’re not comfortable with the intimacy of it. You flinch.

“How much time do we have?” he asks.

“A few hours.” There could be more time than that; Rose often meanders through town on her way home from work, whenever she isn’t bogged down with homework. She likes to curl up at her favorite table and drink café au lait and write depressing poetry in her moleskine journal. For the last three months, she has sustained a heinous crush on one of the baristas, an adorable brunette with a round face whose eyes she once described to you as being ‘the color of spruce needles at springtime.’

You took an incongruous amount of pleasure in reminding her that spruces are evergreens.

Still, you’d rather not risk it. She’s been working doggedly at a final project for one of her classes, and you’d hate for your incestuous sex to break her concentration. Or for her absolutely appropriate shock and disgust to interrupt your incestuous sex.

“That’s more than enough time,” he laughs. Sitting back, he wrenches your legs from around him, squeezing them as he maneuvers you to his liking. “How do you wanna’ do this?” He’s absently rubbing your thigh, pushing at the seam where lace meets skin.

“What do you mean?”

The grin that suddenly splits his face is terrifying. You wonder if he’s going to eat you. “I mean, we could just do it like this, with you on your back, so I can see how many shades of red you turn.” You flip him off, because he’s right. “Or if you prefer, I can turn you on your side and everything will be a surprise.”

You can’t feel your face anymore. Taking what little agency you have left, you simply get on your belly and fold your arms under your cheek. Gazing at Bro over your shoulder, you start to toe off your heels, but he catches your ankle.

“Leave those on.”

“Yeah, okay.” A dreadful well of conflict is brewing in your gut, and your favorite pair of stilettos is right at the eye of the storm. You love these clothes. You love the way they feel on you and you love the way you feel in them. The way your legs look when you strut in six-inch heels, the way pleats in a high-waisted skirt flutter above the knee, the way the seams of these clothes fit your body, flattering but all at once strange…these things have become a source of comfort for you. But Bro’s sudden interest in you, on the day he finds you half-dressed in clothes you don’t feel entirely comfortable claiming, is breeding a sourness in you, and it is entirely misdirected.

It’s relatively easy to sweep this resentment under the rug, though, when Bro’s mouth is moving haphazardly along your back, kissing you, telling you how good you look, because these are things you like to hear, and even better that they’re coming from him. Any praise at all from Bro is high praise.

You’re getting antsy though, and you’ve had just about enough in the way of foreplay. You have little investment in teasing and anticipation, given the tension in your dick is quickly going from pleasant to painful. It’s that moment when you’re playing with a rubber band, stretching it further and further, thinner and thinner until suddenly —

“Bro, come on.”

“Alright, alright.” He jostles you as you direct him to the shoebox in your makeshift bedside table. “Very inconspicuous,” he commends you, lifting it onto the bed. He still has his clothes on and his dick is out and this is all getting too ridiculous.

“Up yours,” you spit without thinking.

He bares his teeth and licks his lips and you know that you’re done for; he’s going to kill you. “Au contraire.” He snorts to himself, finding a barely-opened bottle of lube. But he keeps digging through the box long after, eyebrows shifted together in a rare display of confusion. “Where the fuck are your rubbers, kid?”

Oh. “I don’t have any.”

He stops and just looks at you. His eyes are full of rancid disappointment and you feel so ashamed that you’re actually flagging.

“Why the fuck not?”

“I wasn’t exactly planning on fucking anybody?” And you can practically hear Bro’s voice in your head, you should always be prepared, blah blah blah, suck it. You could hardly fuck yourself, let alone allow anyone else to do the honors. And frankly, living with Rose has sort of sucked all the magic out of the female creature for you.

Bro gets up and actually walks out the door (without tucking himself in, you note) and there’s an awful lot of rummaging and grumbling and cursing going on in the other room. You perch at the edge of your bed, feet on the floor, pigeon toed. You jerk yourself in the interim, trying to rev back up and also to ease the ache a bit. You and your boner have just about had it with your jackass brother. When he comes back though, and you catch the gleam of metal beads peeking out from under, you forgive and forget.

“Here,” he pushes a foil strand of condoms into your hand. “Or do you need me to do a demonstration?”

“How about you go fuck yourself.”

“How about I fuck you, instead.”

You smirk, playing with him, fondling the rungs in his ladder and trying to imagine what that’s going to feel like inside you. It is pretty much impossible. “I guess that’s acceptable.”

“Oh please, you were basically begging me a few minutes ago,” he exaggerates. You exaggerate, too. Hyperbole is just an understatement, a fact of Strider life.

Intently and at his damn leisure, Bro teases you, not dissimilar to the way you tease yourself. He lubes you more than necessary, you think, and gently pushes at you, waiting to see if you’ll give, probably. The dissonance between his callous demeanor and his tender expression gives you whiplash.

He chuckles into your skin. “Gotta’ relax, Dave, can you do that for me?” Part of you feels as though he’s talking down to you, even though you know he isn’t. “Here, try this.” He nabs two of your pillows and thrusts them under your pelvis; now, with your skirt rumpled up and your ass exposed, you feel wrong in the best kind of way.

Something in you shifts, unexplainable and undefinable, but suddenly, gravity is coddling you and it’s kinda’ comfortable and oh, that’s Bro’s finger, sliding in. He has to work at it, though, has to push and pull before he can get it totally in. You grunt into your sheets. It feels…new, definitely. Not at all unpleasant, and there isn’t the pain you’d so fearfully anticipated. It’s actually pretty okay and when he moves it, really moves it, it starts feeling actually pretty fantastic. Without meaning to, you start pushing back, and the twin sensations of Bro’s finger in your ass and soft fabric rubbing against your dick is more than enough incentive.

“Would you hold fuckin’ still for just a moment?” he demands, pushing on the small of your back with more force than is entirely necessary. He holds you down and the noise of frustration that tears out of your throat would topple lesser men. He finds a spot and sticks to it, nudging, careful but persistent.

“What the fuck are you doing back there?” There’s an embarrassing note of rising panic in your voice that you try to beat back.

“Just wait and see.” You want to turn over and smack his pretty face, but being that you’re incapacitated at the moment, you feel obligated to indulge him. To pass the time, you start fantasizing, fast-forwarding in your head to the part where he gets his cock in you, with those three piercings and you wonder what that’s gonna’ be like, each one pushing in, foreign, exotic.

But something is happening now, where Bro is rubbing at you. It’s like he’s cultivated a modest tension, and it’s straining outward, unfurling in your gut and it kind of hurts, but it hurts good. It’s like a headache in reverse and you don’t need to understand, you just want more. But you can’t have more, he tells you, not yet, because he physically cannot do more with his fingers. You’re regretting every time you’ve ever backed out of fingering yourself because if only you’d been resolute, you wouldn’t have to wait.

“Can you hold your weight if I move these?” he tugs at the pillows.

“Uh-huh.” You don’t even know if that’s true, but at this point, you don’t particularly care. Your knees manage not to fail you when your supports are removed, at least until Bro wraps his hand around you and starts stroking — not enough to get you off, but more than enough to irritate you into submission. Your bones feel like lead and your muscles feel like Jello and you’re on the verge of collapse, inside and out.

“Shh.” There’s a hand on your shoulder, and then his knuckles sliding softly over your cheek. “Is it too much?”

“No.” The pressure in your belly has crept all the way up into your larynx and words come out strangled, too thin, but he seems to understand. He pushes on one side of you and pulls on the other and you do not have the stamina to keep this up. “Stop!”

You roll onto your back and catch your breath, try to stave off impending orgasm by any means necessary without completely crashing it. When you finally look over at Bro, his face is unfamiliar to you and that’s because he is emoting. It’s disconcerting because you cannot read him like this; his mouth is hanging open and his eyes are wide and wet and is he scaring?

“No, don’t stop stop,” you clarify weakly, fumbling for his hand or his arm or leg or anything, really. “Just, I was almost there, and I don’t wanna’ be, not yet.”

He drifts back to you slowly, and you know what he’s thinking, and neither of you is going to address it because that would spoil the whole afternoon. He pulls his jeans off and kicks them away, but he leaves on his shirt so the two of you are opposites. Snagging one of the condoms, you throw it at him. Hesitation looks unnatural on him.

“You sure?” He could be asking if you’re sure you’re ready, or if you’re sure you want to do this, or if you’re sure about doing this with him, but the answer is all the same. Taking care to keep your skirt out of the way, you get back in his lap and wait.

Your noses are touching. His eyes are cast downward, and you can see his individual lashes, darker and longer than yours. The same freckles you spent years trying to cover up on yourself look great on him. Rays of four pm sunshine illuminate the strands of hair that have fallen into his face and the heat of the afternoon is amplified between you.

When his cock pushes against you, you’re keenly reminded of why he asked if you were ready. Your answer still hasn’t changed, though. He’s going so slowly and you want to tell him just to do it, just like with a band aid, but you’re the rookie here so you stay quiet at half-court and let Bro go up to plate.

“Relax, remember? Relax for me,” his voice is shaking, diluted. The scariest of all these new sensations is Bro’s unsteady voice.

“Oh Christ,” you shudder, because that’s it, that’s the first barbell.

“Dave?”

You can’t even look at him, can’t open your eyes right now. It isn’t painful per se, but ‘awkward’ might be a decent adjective. This is not the heavenly ecstasy you’d worked up in your head, that’s for damn sure. You hug his neck tightly, clinging, digging your nails like talons into his already-scarred skin.

“Yeah, keep going.”

Pushing into you, he braces one of your hips with his free hand, squeezing reassuringly, massaging you gently through the creased cotton of your skirt while you break his skin. The ends of the piercing slip inside and that… That is so much better. It helps that his dick is pressing at that inner tension better than his fingers ever did, bumping and pushing against it with greater frequency, greater pressure. Your fingers migrate, twisting into his hair, soft and fine and sweet with the smell of product. You rest your cheek on his and just breathe, ragged and hot. The next piercing enters more easily and you wonder if half the game is apprehension, the rift that separates expectation from reality.

“How you doin’ up there?”

“Good.” You sigh, but after this moment, you will never admit that you sighed.

“Kind of a tight fit,” he squirms under you.

“Sorry I didn’t slut it up for you, Bro.”

He kisses your chin and you think you can feel him smile. “Your years at this fine institution have clearly been wasted.”

Rocking in his lap, you start to rail against him, settling at a pace quicker than he was willing to give. Pushing him back into your pillows, taking the reins, you tilt forward, experimenting with angle and tempo. Once Bro catches on to what you’re doing, he stops you, repositions you so that you’re leaning back, no longer facing him.

“Ride me like that, put your weight into — yeah, like that.” Bro’s groans are hushed, long and soft and almost inaudible. A hand, warm and still a little sticky with lube, sneaks around to your chest before sliding down over your stomach, resting beneath your belly button. He presses and —

“Oh God.” That’s it, that’s the spot, and the beads of a barbell are bearing down into it, smooth and hard.

“Fuck, that looks good.”

You strain over your shoulder at Bro; his eyes have strayed lower than yours can. You can hardly see what’s happening, but you can imagine it: your dark stockings and your tight skirt, pushed up over your hips, Bro’s cock slipping in and out of you and God, you want to know what that looks like.

“Feels pretty good.” And it does, but your legs are beginning to ache and this is not the time to get a cramp. You don’t want to tell him though, because that would be like admitting defeat, somehow. Instead, you persevere, relying on your weight more than is entirely safe and God, are those noises coming out of yourmouth? Shit, he’s gonna’ be using this ammo for weeks.

He must notice that you’re losing steam, and you will find time to be embarrassed later, when you’re not being pushed head-first into your mattress. Bro realigns himself and pushes back in and this time, now that you know what to expect, you relish the sensation of each piercing against you, of those big hands holding you in place. Christ, if this isn’t exactly where you’ve wanted to be for years.

The scritch of coarse, new stubble against your ear is jarring, but not nearly as jarring as Bro’s ragged voice. “Fuckin’ hell, kid, do you know how great you look?”

The terse laugh that grates past your teeth does little to disguise your smug satisfaction. “Yeah, I do.”

“God, walking in here and seeing this,” he pulls at the hem of your skirt, palms the lace that’s cinched around your thigh. “Those fucking tights and —” he staggers, his hips picking up speed, and his fingers are pressing so hard into your hip that you’re terrified he’s going to break it. “And that skirt, Jesus. I knew you had an ass, kid, but — fuck.” Bro’s forehead is resting, hot and a little clammy against your shoulder. His mouth is wide open and his breath eddies over your skin in spry, succinct puffs. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he’s repeating himself, and it sinks into your pores. You know that tone, that pulled-thin, hoarse almost-sob — know it all too well. It’s the same as you.

You moan in equal parts disappointment and satisfaction that he’s losing it first — losing it literally over you, after all.

Bro’s weight crushes you as he pounds into you, fitful and with only one purpose. There’s a shadow of the same desperate euphoria in you, swollen and almost within reach but too late. A noise belonging more to a wild animal than to a grown man shreds the thick air inside your room, and you swear you can hear the windows rattling. He pulls you against him and it almost hurts, when he stills, too deep. Blanketed by him and his full-body shudder, you grind your teeth because —

“Goddamn it, Bro!”

“Fuck, I —!” The pressure eases up and he slides his face into the hollow of your neck. “Fuck, I’m sorry.”

“Shut up and get me off, God, I’ve only been waiting for this my entire stupid life. Don’t let me put you to shame here, man,” your mouth is running ten miles ahead of your brain. “I mean this is a whole new level of comeuppance.”

“Goddamn it, Dave.” He’s laughing, at least. He moves inside you, gently, tired. But now, he’s directly on top of you, and the shift of his weight works in your favor, two of those barbells pushing on one side, your bed pushing from the other. He grabs your wrists, kisses you wherever he can reach, wet and slipshod and a little toothy.

“Bro.” You crane your neck so that you can see him, his profile illuminated by dusky light. His jagged, narrow septum; chapped, pouty lips; a strong, square jaw — longer, more defined than yours…and he’s so close, and you can feel him on you, in you, everywhere at once. In your mind’s eye, you see him just as you always have, except attainable.

“C’mere,” he growls, forces your face to the side and smacks his mouth against it, bites you, catches you by surprise. Your nerve endings are all going off like fireworks and it’s too much, the grandest of finales, explosions detonating under your skin. Time stops the way it always used to, and for a second, you wonder if maybe you still had some sparks left in your blood.

But it’s over as soon as it began, and time resumes, linear as ever.

Bro tries to pull you on top of him, but you flinch, the stimulation too much for you. Instead, he settles for letting you curl up at his side; his hands are roaming along you, aimless, admiring. There’s a heavy tension cutting into the air, soiling the golden afternoon sun. Traffic sounds reach you through the closed windows, far-off and surreal.

You laugh. “Guess I’m pretty hot in this,” you gesture at your ruined clothes, “huh?”

Sitting up, Bro looks at you closely. “Yeah,” he agrees, pulling his shirt over his head long after the fact. Then, his hands — before, so sure of themselves, now hesitant as if awaiting permission — slowly rolling the stockings off your legs, dark nylon giving way to scarred, pale skin, blonde hair only visible in the light. Then, he searches carefully, fingers burrowing into your skirt; he pulls it down, shucking you of the garment. “You’re pretty hot,” he reiterates, laying down next to you, his bare body flush against yours, chest-to-chest. Your head fits neatly under his chin.

Your eyes catch the smudged clockface from over his shoulder just before you fall asleep. Vaguely, there is some part of you that is nagging to get up and lock your bedroom door, but you aren’t a heavy snoozer.

 

 

 

When you wake, it is to voices out in the other room. It’s dark now, only the orange glow of a street light blinking in and out between the gaps in your blinds. Your door is closed, but you can hear Bro laughing with Rose about something, and his voice is sweet in a way you don’t recognize.

Rolling out of bed, you shuffle around the room in the dark, cursing to yourself every time you bump into something. At last, you find a cotton tee shirt and some shorts. It isn’t until you’re in the cold kitchen light that you realize your shirt is on inside out. Bothered enough to fix it, you catch Bro’s eyes on you when your head pops back through the hole. Rose is at the table, nose in a textbook, spoon submerged in a bowl of what can only be your brother’s infamous Rotel chili, from the smell that’s permeating the air.

“Well lookit that, Sleeping Beauty is up and at ‘em.”

“Yeah,” you grab a bowl out of the sink and go to rinse it, but Bro takes it from you and gets the last clean one from the cupboard. “True love’s first kiss and all.” You were talking about the chili, but then your memory catches up with you and your face feels hotter than a jalapeno.

“Oh, did you finally find your prince charming, then?”

“Ha,” you scoop as much meat into the bowl as possible. Brushing by him, you murmur, “A little less charming, a little more jackass.”

Squinting at you, he says, “I’d knock that bowl out of your hands if my cooking wasn’t worth its weight in gold.”

“Don’t overestimate yourself.”

“Now, now, children,” Rose doesn’t even glance up from her book, “sit down and let’s all have a nice family dinner.”

“There’s kidney beans and almost a third of a jar of Tabasco in this,” Bro takes a seat on the couch. “Ain’t nothing nice about it.” Pointedly, he sits as far away from you as possible, like he isn’t as guilty as the next guy of horrible Tex-Mex aftermath.

“Aw hell yes, you put the limes in it!” you exclaim upon finding a juicy, green slice.

“Just for you, kid.”

Reclining so that your feet are in his lap, you savor the burst of thick and savory across your tongue. Bro spills some piping chili on your bare feet on purpose, so you kick him in the leg, but he grabs your ankle and it shoots up your spine.

He squeezes you and smirks, just out of Rose’s eyeline. Setting his bowl down, he busies his hands with massaging your aching feet, and the thrill of being almost in plain sight stops your food in your throat.

When Rose retires, book tucked under her arm, thanks and compliments tucked between her sarcasm, the two of you wait a while before letting the charade fall. You crawl next to Bro and glue yourself to his side, the way you did when you were little. Your enthusiasm catches him off guard, but it wasn’t so long ago that you woke up in a cold sweat, his body — run through and sticky with gore — fresh in your memory.

Sometimes you want to ask him if he remembers, but most of the time you’re just grateful that he probably doesn’t.

“So uh, do you think Rose would think it was weird if she saw you come out of my room in the morning, or what?”

Pinching you in the side, Bro shrugs. “No weirder than any other shit we pull, probably.” He stretches and a couple of his vertebrae crack resoundingly. “God, I’ve gotten used to a bed since you’ve been gone,” he chuckles. “I’m so spoiled.”

Your insides coil up in a way that has very little to do with the chili.

When he goes to your tiny bathroom to shower, you drag his suitcase into your room. You’ll probably have an hour to kill, so you start to tidy up out of sheer nerves. You put your laundry into the hamper, not bothering to pile your skirts or blouses into the bottom, instead letting things pile in as they may.

During the interim, John texts you, asks if Bro is, in fact, in town. You’re filled with an intense sense of defensiveness when he declares he will be steering clear of your apartment for a while. He doesn’t actually dislike Bro, just likes to grind your fucking gears about it.

When Bro arrives back, he doesn’t bother getting into any clothes, just slips in beside you. “I was thinking,” he reaches for the lamp and the room is thrown into darkness. “We should go out tomorrow, if you aren’t busy. I wanna’ get you an early graduation present.”

Smirking, you run your fingers over his dick; his sharp inhalation transforms your smirk into a shit-eating grin. “Knowing you’re getting another one of these,” you finger one of the barbells, “is basically gift enough.”

“Oh, my cock is gonna’ be out of commission for at least a month afterward.” His voice wavers in the dark, and you cringe in sympathy for him. “I was thinking a little more along the lines of, I don’t know…Loubitins, maybe.”

“Are you serious?”

“Only if you want ‘em.”

“Don’t even joke with me, man.”

“This is so much better than buying you dead shit in jars.”

“Hey.” It occurs to you that he never did get you that gecko he promised, but then, all things considered, you figure you can let it slide.

Wrapping his arm around you, he kisses your forehead. “Goodnight, kid.”

“Night.” It is, perhaps, one of the better nights of your life.

It may have started out as a joke, but you’re really hoping this thing with Bro won’t turn out to be just a punchline.


End file.
